Some fond memories of Wildcat on Facebook the other day so thought I'd run a covers gallery (an interiors) for the next few days - to cover the fact that I'm on holiday and therefore don't have ready access to my collections...If you're not interested in Wildcat, I suggest you come back in a couple of weeks time :)

Cover by Ian Kennedy (Wildcat is slightly larger than A4 so I'm going to lose a bit of each scan, hey-ho)

Art by Massimo Belardinelli on Joe Alien

Loner by David Pugh

Kitten Magee rear cover by Jose Ortiz

There was also Turbo Jones illustrated by Ian Kennedy, a Kitten Magee strip by Jose Ortiz and a one-off strip entitled Final Mission, drawn by Lalia

Coming soon from Breakdown Press, Good News Bible collects Shaky’s complete comic strips and illustrations from the ground-breaking British counter-culture magazine Deadline, which between 1988 and 1995 spawned Jamie Hewlett’s Tank Girl and launched dozens of cartoonists’ careers. Drenched in wry wit, Kane’s politically charged, hallucinatory, Jack Kirby-infused punk cartoons crackle with intensity and bombast, remaining as relevant now as when they were first published 30 years ago.

Wednesday, 9 August 2017

The issue of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles for 3-16 November 1990 (issue #21) was advertised as coming free with Zero Hour comic. I didn't get Turtles comic at the time (still reading new Eagle) but I've collected it in recent years and when I acquired this issue I was disappointed that the comic was missing.

There was an advert in the issue for what 'Zero Hour' was though...

As you can see from the picture on the left the concept is that "...the BAD Brigade (Bullies, Aggressors and Destroyers) are directed by an unknown evil mastermind who is intent on taking over the world". The soldiers and vehicles were (according to this link) marketed as 'Zero Hour' in the UK and as 'Code Zero' in the US.

Bluebird Toys would work on the Havok line of comic inserts in 2000ad but these were in late 1996, early 1997, this comic pre-dates that marketing push by quite a few years. Anyway, without further ado, here it is...

Interesting to see that there is a copyright symbol at the bottom of page 2 for Marvel Comics - I assume this is Marvel US rather than Marvel UK.

Stephen Baskerville has confirmed that the pencils are by Geoff Senior, the inks are his (Stephen Baskerville's) and the colouring is maybe by John Burns Jr.

Tuesday, 8 August 2017

Orbital comics have announced an evening with Dave Gibbons & Tim Pilcher...here they say...

Orbital is proud to present the launch of How Comics Work, the exciting new book from Dave Gibbons and Tim Pilcher. Pulling back the curtain of comic book creation, the iconic artist behind Watchmen and Green Lantern reveals insider hints, tips and tricks in his own words. Covering both traditional and digital techniques, this “how it’s done” book will prove essential to any aspiring comic creator.

Gibbons and Pilcher will be signing copies of their new book from 5:30 – 7:30pm, and the evening will conclude with a free-to-attend after-hours panel discussion. If ever you wanted to get comic book industry knowledge first-hand, this will be the event you can’t afford to miss!

Boo is the spine cover artist for the series, for which volume 32 (but issue 1 to be published) is shown below. Publication price is £1.99 and Forbidden Planet are promising a free poster with every purchase.

Friday, 4 August 2017

August 2017 is the 35th Anniversary of the first publication of the iconic The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. To celebrate, Steve and Ian will be signing at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore on Friday 4th August from 6 – 7pm.

Ian will be signing the new Fighting Fantasy title, The Port of Peril. In this brand new addition to the multi million-copy-selling books, you - the hero - must travel all over Allansia, from old haunts like Darkwood Forest and Port Blacksand, on a dangerous quest!
And Ian and Steve will be signing the 35th Anniversary re-releases of the first five titles of the original series...

In 1982, Ian Livingstone co- authored The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first interactive gamebook in the Fighting Fantasy series, and wrote 15 of the titles, including City of Thieves, Forest of Doom and Deathtrap Dungeon. When serving as Executive Chairman at Eidos, he launched video games blockbusters including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. He currently chairs nine video games companies. He co-authored the influential Livingstone-Hope Next Gen review published by NESTA in 2011, working with government to introduce the new Computing curriculum in schools in 2014. He has been awarded a CBE and a BAFTA Special Award.

Steve Jackson co-founded the videogame developers Lionhead Studios with industry legend Peter Molyneux. He wrote a weekly column on games and puzzles every Saturday in the Daily Telegraph, wrote and directed the F.I.S.T. series of telephone games, designed ‘Battlecards’ the first collectable card game series and his Sorcery series was converted to an app by Inkle Studios in 2013, with over 3 million paid downloads to date. Ex- Professor of Game Design at Brunel University Steve co-created the UK’s first MA game design course. And in 1993 he was awarded title of European Games Champion at the international games fair at Essen, 1993.